On Decolonisation

We are a fast-growing economy and have already surged ahead of Britain, the country that once held us as a colony. This is decolonisation in progress. The process will be complete the day we surpass that country in terms of per-capita GDP.

Niraj Kumar Jha

Beyond Fear and Greed

Fear and greed, both tangible and intangible, real and imagined, compete to dominate human actions and behaviour. Greed takes people ahead, fear holds back. The first makes people aggressive, and the latter, submissive. Tragically, too many philosophical systems of the world rely on these two tendencies of the human mind to realise their perceived good.

The sagacity is to transcend these two instinctive behaviours of human beings. Our ancient seers showed the path. They invoked the essence of existence, the Brahm, the incorruptible essence permeating every phenomenon, as the prime guide of human agency. It is the point of both separation and union. When people realise the Truth, they overcome both fear and greed.

But life is life. The mantra is to cope with life without causing others pain as little as possible and to be good to others as much as possible. Contentment comes not from other ways.

Niraj Kumar Jha

Repurposing Human Life

Automation is tending to be optimum, and humanity's prime role of one serving the other is diminishing day by day. As communities have yet to redefine human roles and redesign life itself, there are severe disruptions everywhere, which are going to be graver with each passing day. Its negative outcome, as seen in the developed parts of the world, is the growing charm of socialist ideas and formations. The fact is that technological advances promise the best for human life and would bring conditions better than ever utopiated (the act of imaginative articulation of an ideal future world), but right now things are perilous. The world needs to overcome its imagination lag or deficit; the sooner it does, the better it will be.

Niraj Kumar Jha

Dark Factories and Sociology

Factories are dark as no human beings work there. Large carriers on roads do not have cabins or lights, as they are not driven by humans. These are only samples of happenings. Human beings are losing their role as producers, and most of them would have no jobs. These are going to cause humongous challenges for everyone and for everything. Social sciences, in general, and sociology in particular, need to be proactive and prescriptive rather than simply reactive and descriptive. Changes are in auto mode and in an unprecedented way; they need to be addressed, and the whole social setup needs to be remodelled to prevent crises which these changes entail.

Niraj Kumar Jha 

The Likely World Order

The world may be nearing the end of its transitional phase—from the conflictual bipolarity of the past to a negotiated duopolarity. This emerging order could prove even tighter and more constraining than the most difficult phases of the Cold War, unless the nations of the world act to prevent it.

Niraj Kumar Jha

Ideological Work

By nature, human beings tend to have a worldview. Here, I classify worldviews as achieved and received. The first is one that a human being consciously strives to develop: they study, observe, and engage with the world to understand the meanings and implications of events and phenomena. Thus, they possess a worldview, are aware of it and choose their actions accordingly.

The second type is what an overwhelming number of people have; they follow traditions and what they have been indoctrinated into. Generally, people do not realise that they live according to an ensemble of doctrines. Agencies, practices, and fellow human beings inculcate these doctrines, shaping their minds. Even the most liberal societies have such mechanisms. People follow them habitually, little realising that what they consider natural behaviour is often the working of a manufactured product, consciously designed with specific purposes.

Most people are either unable or lack the means or opportunity to develop their own worldview consciously. They tend to imbibe what is given to them. A more significant fact is that most people cannot have an independent, consciously curated worldview. This incapability—arising from orientation or circumstances—makes people subject to ideologies and their constituent doctrines, which provide ready-made plans for action and conduct.

Here, the point is that although an ideology may appear unquestionably good to its adherents, it may not necessarily be good for individual human beings, communities, or humanity at large. Those who can detect the doctrine behind every human action—biological or sociological—can devise benign ideologies and equip them with mechanisms to suppress or sideline malignant ones.

My concern here is to raise awareness of the ideological work institutions need to undertake.

Niraj Kumar Jha

I wish

I wish somebody had said this: that this land, which once shaped the intellectual direction of a large part of the world, can become a leading centre of knowledge again. Bihar was the heart of the Mauryan Empire under Asoka, one of the greatest empires of the world. His principles of governance and moral responsibility were recorded on stone and carried across Asia, even reaching the Greek world. Later, the Gupta Empire, known for prosperity, mathematics, astronomy, and cultural refinement, also had its centres here. This was the region of Aryabhata, of the development of the decimal system, of the flowering of classical literature and sculpture.

More importantly, Bihar was home to Nalanda and Vikramshila—international universities that attracted scholars from China, Korea, Japan, Tibet, Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia. This was a knowledge network long before the modern term existed.

The same foundation exists today. Bihar has a serious culture of education. Families with minimal means sell their land so their children can study. This is not symbolic; it is a functioning social value. This is the base of a knowledge economy.

With the right policy direction, Bihar can develop universities and research clusters that work at the frontiers of robotics, machine learning, IoT, AI, and the longer-term pursuit of AGI. In the same way that universities like UCLA played a key role in the research ecosystem that eventually fed into Silicon Valley, Bihar can build academic–industry innovation corridors. The talent exists. The willingness to learn exists. What is needed is institutional architecture and long-term planning.

Agriculture, too, can be modernised through precision technologies, data-driven crop systems, and value-added processing chains. Tourism has enormous untapped potential; Bodh Gaya, Nalanda, Rajgir, Vaishali, Pawapuri and Vikramshila are among the most significant sites in the global histories of Buddhism, Jainism, and Hindu philosophy.

Yet none of this was discussed in the recent elections. The public vision remains small. A region that once shaped knowledge across continents is encouraged to dream in terms of small, low-paying jobs, not because people lack ability, but because leadership has failed to speak of what is possible.

My wish is simple: that someone would have said we can build a knowledge economy here, one that researches, invents, and leads. That Bihar can become a centre of innovation again, just as it once was.

Niraj Kumar Jha